Pod People

There’s a long list of things I don’t believe in. Decaffeinated coffee. Fairies. Ghosts. Gods. Edited volumes that are worth a shit. Angels. That Coke and Pepsi are equivalent. Vacuum cleaners that don’t lose suction. Reincarnation. Baggage fees. Jack & cokes. That Avatar was a good movie. The list goes on…

But I do believe that my ipod has magical powers. It does. Granted, all the music on my ipod is music I put there. I get that. But how does “random shuffle” know to pick the perfect tunes for a rainy intoxicated afternoon? How does it know that? How does it know that I need a post-writing music session? How does it know my type and degree of intoxication? How does it know the weather? I believe my ipod to be wise. Maybe I should sober up before the toaster starts talking to me. I gotta go. I have a strange and urgent need to make cinnamon toast.

Yep, I’ve Joined the Bandwagon

Perhaps you find yourself thinking Hey, was that SCDP logo we saw in the new office in Arial font? No it wasn’t. It’s Akidenz Grotesk, totally acceptable if you are a stickler for such things. You might also be thinking Font? Who cares about that shiz. Did Don just request to be slapped around by a prostitute? Damn. Yes. Damn. Many of you however might be thinking Well I dooooo declare, what in tarnation are you talking about? Mad Men is the answer (and yes, I imagine you thinking in that folksy southern voice). I got sick of all the hype and figured there was no way the show could be worthy of all the praise it received. But then I watched it one night. I stand corrected. The show is good.

*Stole the hedcut from here.

City Council Decree

You realize that your office is in Crazytown right? In fact, you are a pillar of the community. You are sort of the unofficial mayor of Crazytown and perhaps the town cryer and maybe even the town thief. Your office, the one next door, and your labs make Crazytown. Beyond your walls is the city limits where Crazytown ends and the remainder of our Department begins. You are landlocked. You serve no purpose. You have no valuable goods or services with which you can engage in trade with our Department. You have broken all diplomatic ties. You will not be annexed into our Department. We will no longer provide services. We will allow Crazytown to further devolve into lawless chaos. Your town will wither and die. We will then take possession of your land and gentrify the shit out of it.

Sleazy

Fuck that. I just don’t give a shit. Why do I care about making learning “easier”? Easier? Fuck that. Look, I’m all for trying to be a decent teacher. I am willing to put some thought and effort into the task. But I have zero interest in making it fucking “easy”. Some shit just ain’t easy. It’s not easy for me and it won’t be easy for my students. That’s fucking college. So fuck you and your lame seminars about how I can make things “easier” for my students. What fucking good comes of easy?

Who runs these seminars? More pertinently, who the fuck comes up with the titles? Making Your Class Easier for Your Students. Now why the hell would I want to do that? And who the fuck needs a seminar about it? It would be easy to make my classes easy. We all know how to make our classes easy for students and ourselves. I mean think about that for a minute. Did any of you need longer than that to design the easiest motherfucking class ever? No. It’s easy. It’s also crap.

Easy is for right now- a sunny Friday afternoon. I’ll be holding a seminar on my patio titled How to Pass an Easy Afternoon Through Sunshine and Substances. Sign up now to secure your spot!

Hero Worship

How many letters of recommendation have I written? Who the fuck knows. A lot. How many letters have I written for my hero? One. I just wrote it. When I’ve written such letters in the past for people considerably more “senior/accomplished” than me it’s always been in the context of me serving the role as the more “junior/newbie” letter writer. Know what I mean? I’ve always been expected to attest to their skills as a mentor/professor/leader from the perspective of a young ‘un. But this time was different. I mean, shit, this dude is my hero. I’m actually flattered to have the chance to flatter him and by “flattered” I mean “fuck yeah go me!” I’m a jerk like that. One minute I’m reminiscing about how awesome someone else is, how grateful I am to know them…and then, poof, I’m waxing philosophical about how fancy and tenured I am.

Grammnit!

Making shit move around doesn’t make it better. Unless you’re juggling, in which case it’s much better to keep shit moving around. Hold on, let me explain what I’m seeing right now. Microsoft Word, in its infinite wisdom, is freaking the fuck out right now. The title has the squiggly red lines under it and the second sentence appears to be resting on Astroturf. Oh, and Astroturf keeps getting capitalized even though I don’t think plastic greenery is worthy of capitalism. I’ve grown accustom to seeing a good percentage of the words I type sitting on little red or green squiggle boats. I don’t really care. I like pissing off Word. You ever click on the “About this sentence button”? I had never bothered until now. This is what comes up for the second sentence up there.

Fragment: If the marked words are an incomplete thought, consider developing this thought into a complete sentence by adding a subject or a verb or combining this text with another sentence.

Instead of: Meteors the entire night.

Consider: We watched meteors the entire night.

Instead of: Because the teacher said to.

Consider: You have to, because the teacher said to.

What? Technically, I get it. When I write for work I can make the effort to be grammatical. But when I just want to convey the fact that the addition of swirling photos all over the fucking University homepage just makes it even MORE annoying, well, fuck I will not consider revising! Why? Because the teacher fucking said so.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

What the fuck is this nonsense? You need to register for my class but it’s full?

My class. Full.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I have to teach again. What the fuck am I teaching again? Shit. Shit. Shit.

Who Are You, What Are You Doing and Why Do You Keep Looking At Me?!?

So I was stumbling around blogland drinking coffee and recuperating from eating grilled things and blowing stuff up― which, by the way, is exactly how ‘Merica wants us to celebrate its birthday. If that’s not what you did than you clearly hate ‘Merica (and by default, you must hate me, cheetohs, PBR and everything else that makes this country kickass too, in which case you can just move along). Anyhoo, I found myself over at Proflike's place. As I rooted around in the bushes looking for unexploded bottle rockets and unopened beers I found this meme. Seeing as how I can’t grill it, explode it or use it to intoxicate myself, I may as well post it. I’ve simplified it a bit, but hey, I’m curious. Don’t be shy. Just answer the damn questions…I’ll go make another pot of coffee. Cream? Sugar? Whiskey?

Tell me about you. Who are you? Do you have a background in science? If so, what draws you here as opposed to meatier, more academic fare? And if not, what brought you here and why have you stayed? Let loose with those comments.

Check Yo Self

So I got beaned in the head with a baseball. Seriously. A giant bulbous growth spurted out of my head instantly. It was crazy. A huge lump just materialized in seconds. That part was kinda cool. It was like being in a sci-fi film with a giant alien baby about to pop out of my head. I’m fine and the alien baby is retreating back into my brain. I am now in the “black-eye phase” of the getting-whacked-in-the-head-recovery-process. So people who see me think I am either a volatile drunk or a battered wife. Those are the stereotypes the fine people of the hardware store were weighing as I purchased trash bags. Sure, we can all think of lots of reasons why somebody would have a black eye, but when you’re of a certain age I think Mr. Dude Who Gets Drunk And Picks Fights and Mrs. That Bastard Hit Me are the most obvious guesses. And people guess. They fucking do, I can see it on their faces. This is not paranoia on my part. Although, I did recently experience some head trauma…and the trash bags were kinda looking at me funny…it is 1985 right?